110
6 Transoceanic Voyaging in the Pacific
extended into the lowlands to the east—Jivaro, Zaparo, Mosetene and the neighbouring Arawakan tribes. This is strikingly parallel to the distribution of the hualpa names
for the chicken. The Colombian maize names had an even wider distribution—to the
northwest: northern Peru (Chimu) to Honduras (Lenca), Guatemala (Xinca), and southern Mexico (Chiapanec, Mazatec); to the east: Tupian, Cariban, Tucanoan, and most of the
Arawakan. . .Maize is now considered to have been carried from Mexico to South America
around 1500 B.C., and the linguistic linkages to southern Mexico thereby gain considerable
interest. If maize, spreading after 1500 B.C., has a distribution comparable to that for the
chicken, as it does, then there is more reason to think of the diffusion of the chicken as
pre-Columbian than as post-Columbian. It is pressing the data rather hard, but if the rate of
spread of ideas is taken as about one mile per year, as the Old World model suggests, and
if the spread of the chicken from a Pacific coastal point of introduction is assumed, then
the distance travelled in South America is about three thousand miles. The indicated time
of introduction would be 1500 B.C., about the same time as the introduction of maize. The
similarities in distribution and changes in forms of the words are sufficiently parallel to be
reinforcing (p. 205).
Though all modern maize cultivars appear to derive from a single line of wild
maize which grows today in the Jalisco Valley, not far from Mexico City [11],
maize cultivation is ancient, its “characteristic phytoliths”, for example, found on a
7,000-year-old tool [12]. Maize appears to have undergone multiple domestications
in America. The linguistic pathways (Peruvian and Columbian) which Birket-Smith
defined and Carter uses to follow the diffusion of maize southwards from Mexico
to Chile after about 1500 BC almost certainly were attached to a specific cultivar or
cultivars which may have appeared as new domesticates at this time.
Jones and Klar comment that many archaeologists have noted similarities
between the single-piece curved shell fishhooks (which appeared in California
before 1000 BC and which resemble those from Micronesia and Hawaii) and
single-piece curved shell fishhooks found in Chile. If Carter’s suggestion about the
“striking parallel” between the diffusion of the hualpa names for the chicken within
America and the diffusion of Peruvian and Colombian names for maize is valid,
diffusion of these early fishhooks would parallel diffusion rates for both chickens
and maize to Chile. This suggests that the Polynesian chicken could have arrived
with first-wave Polynesian explorers and diffused along with the single-piece curved
shell fishhook from coastal Mexico to Chile by the same pathways as maize.
But, on linguistic grounds, Carter suggests the possibility of multiple introductions of the chicken into America from the Pacific. He proposes that
the Asiatic chicken was carried into the Pacific through a series of introductions. Asiatic
attitudes, customs and even names at times accompanied the bird. The complex of biological, linguistic, and cultural data constitutes the evidence of the Asiatic origin for this
immense spread (p. 198).
Further, on the subject of plural introductions, Carter comments:
We seem rather quickly to assume that we are dealing with single contacts and one transfer
of a trait. In the chicken case, we have hints that we may have had plural introductions.
Note, for instance, the Japanese name among the Tarahumar and the Hindu names among
the Arawak and the Guaymi. Note also that there seem to be two or three Asiatic varieties –
naked-necked, rumpless, melanotic, frizzled, silky, peacombed, feather-puffed – in various
combinations. Although these could have come in one mixed lot, we have a curious hint
6 Transoceanic Voyaging in the Pacific
extended into the lowlands to the east—Jivaro, Zaparo, Mosetene and the neighbouring Arawakan tribes. This is strikingly parallel to the distribution of the hualpa names
for the chicken. The Colombian maize names had an even wider distribution—to the
northwest: northern Peru (Chimu) to Honduras (Lenca), Guatemala (Xinca), and southern Mexico (Chiapanec, Mazatec); to the east: Tupian, Cariban, Tucanoan, and most of the
Arawakan. . .Maize is now considered to have been carried from Mexico to South America
around 1500 B.C., and the linguistic linkages to southern Mexico thereby gain considerable
interest. If maize, spreading after 1500 B.C., has a distribution comparable to that for the
chicken, as it does, then there is more reason to think of the diffusion of the chicken as
pre-Columbian than as post-Columbian. It is pressing the data rather hard, but if the rate of
spread of ideas is taken as about one mile per year, as the Old World model suggests, and
if the spread of the chicken from a Pacific coastal point of introduction is assumed, then
the distance travelled in South America is about three thousand miles. The indicated time
of introduction would be 1500 B.C., about the same time as the introduction of maize. The
similarities in distribution and changes in forms of the words are sufficiently parallel to be
reinforcing (p. 205).
Though all modern maize cultivars appear to derive from a single line of wild
maize which grows today in the Jalisco Valley, not far from Mexico City [11],
maize cultivation is ancient, its “characteristic phytoliths”, for example, found on a
7,000-year-old tool [12]. Maize appears to have undergone multiple domestications
in America. The linguistic pathways (Peruvian and Columbian) which Birket-Smith
defined and Carter uses to follow the diffusion of maize southwards from Mexico
to Chile after about 1500 BC almost certainly were attached to a specific cultivar or
cultivars which may have appeared as new domesticates at this time.
Jones and Klar comment that many archaeologists have noted similarities
between the single-piece curved shell fishhooks (which appeared in California
before 1000 BC and which resemble those from Micronesia and Hawaii) and
single-piece curved shell fishhooks found in Chile. If Carter’s suggestion about the
“striking parallel” between the diffusion of the hualpa names for the chicken within
America and the diffusion of Peruvian and Colombian names for maize is valid,
diffusion of these early fishhooks would parallel diffusion rates for both chickens
and maize to Chile. This suggests that the Polynesian chicken could have arrived
with first-wave Polynesian explorers and diffused along with the single-piece curved
shell fishhook from coastal Mexico to Chile by the same pathways as maize.
But, on linguistic grounds, Carter suggests the possibility of multiple introductions of the chicken into America from the Pacific. He proposes that
the Asiatic chicken was carried into the Pacific through a series of introductions. Asiatic
attitudes, customs and even names at times accompanied the bird. The complex of biological, linguistic, and cultural data constitutes the evidence of the Asiatic origin for this
immense spread (p. 198).
Further, on the subject of plural introductions, Carter comments:
We seem rather quickly to assume that we are dealing with single contacts and one transfer
of a trait. In the chicken case, we have hints that we may have had plural introductions.
Note, for instance, the Japanese name among the Tarahumar and the Hindu names among
the Arawak and the Guaymi. Note also that there seem to be two or three Asiatic varieties –
naked-necked, rumpless, melanotic, frizzled, silky, peacombed, feather-puffed – in various
combinations. Although these could have come in one mixed lot, we have a curious hint